“Yes, she did.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. It began to look like I was about to guard a body.
Chapter 2
I asked Karla Sundstrom for more details about the anonymous threats to her client, but she told me that would have to wait until I met Chandelier Wells in person—apparently Ms. Wells was not about to buy a pig in a poke no matter how effusively I came recommended at preschool. We set an appointment for eight that evening at Ms. Wells’s Pacific Heights home, then Ms. Sundstrom went back to her law firm, where the bad mood she’d brought to my office would undoubtedly be fully restored.
After a trip to the bank to deposit the $123.42 I’d earned last week and an early lunch of patty melt and American fries at Zorba’s, I spent the rest of the day clearing the slate of old business and warding off a platoon of second thoughts. The old business had to do with bunko—my client had been ripped off by a time-share scam up at Tahoe; luckily, the scam was widespread enough that the attorney general had shut it down and filed suit for recision and restitution. The second thoughts were of going to work for Chandelier Wells.
All I knew of her had come from the media, which of course made it suspect by definition. Almost daily, it seemed, the Chronicle contained a feature piece on her doings in sections ranging from style to society to business to the gossip column. Almost as often, the local talk shows throbbed with praise of her prose or her sales records. What I knew for sure was that Ms. Sundstrom had not exaggerated—Chandelier Wells was a fabulously successful writer, one of those whose glossy fat paperbacks overflow the racks and shelves to rise like stalagmites from the floors of bookstores and supermarkets, to say nothing of Costco and Walgreens and S. F. International. According to snippets of reviews I vaguely remembered, what she wrote was romantic suspense of a sort, wherein the heroine runs afoul not only of a roguish male and a recalcitrant private life but also of one or another brand of social injustice that she always manages to set right in the penultimate chapter.
Each book was part of a series that featured a middle-aged newspaper columnist named Maggie Katz. Apparently to millions of women, Maggie was the embodiment of their fears and desires and hopes and frustrations, an irresistible mix of their real lives and their feminist fantasies in which all always came out right in the end. An hour with Maggie Katz was better than an hour with Newman or Redford or even Oprah, or so Chandelier’s sales levels suggested. It was an idolatrous phenomenon I understood myself, at least partially—during my college and army years, it had done me worlds of good to hang out with Lew Archer and Philip Marlowe on a regular basis and pretend their triumphs were somehow my own. In fact, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald were to blame more than anyone else for my becoming a private eye.
My problem with Chandelier Wells was not with her work, my problem was with her person. First, she was a celebrity, and most celebrities inhabit nothing beyond the universe of their own desires, which is a swell definition of boring. Second, she was vastly wealthy, her income exceeded among her peers only by Grisham, Crichton, and King, and I had a genetic aversion to the upper crust. She was also, if you could believe the papers, opinionated, arrogant, and autocratic. Which is to say, she was like most of the titans of industry in the city. Also, like the most notorious of those titans, she had somehow managed to convince the struggling middle class that she was on their side, nonetheless.
Her personal life was off-putting as well. Divorced for many years from a youthful marriage to a ne’er-do-well, she had dated and discarded most of the city’s eligible bachelors, several of whom were as rich and famous in their own sphere as she was in hers, and the details of the denouements always made it into the press. Worse, at least in my view, she was a public mother, exhibiting her sloe-eyed daughter at all the right social and charitable events when she wasn’t being photographed romping with her child at the zoo or on the Marina Green, the quality time coincidentally captured in some flattering media profile. Admittedly, she donated lots of time and money to good causes, always generously but always publicly as well. She was also rumored to have political ambitions of the moralistic bent that is so predominant in the Southern reaches of the nation. In sum, I wasn’t sure I could endure fifteen minutes of her time over a fast-food lunch, let alone guard her person for eighteen hours at a stretch.
Nevertheless, I rang her bell at 8 P.M. Behind me, the grounds of the estate stretched toward Pacific Avenue like a cleverly built quilt abundant with botanical appliqués. Above me, the house rose like an advancing glacier, its white stone facade broken by narrow slits of windows, pebbled with ornamentation of a medieval motif, and topped by a gray slate roof rising beyond a row of battlements that in the gloom of a late winter evening resembled a derelict’s teeth. Thanks to her bankroll and her architect, Chandelier was ready to repel invaders—all she lacked was a moat and a drawbridge and a knight in shining armor. Or maybe that was me.
The bell was answered by a young woman who gave me a smile full of bright teeth and pink gums and told me her name was Lark McLaren and that she was Ms. Wells’s executive assistant. She wore brown slacks over flat heels and below a beige cable-knit sweater that advertised a trim figure and an understated sense of style, which was the only understated object I’d seen since I’d parked my car.
When we shook hands, hers was warm and agreeable, in contrast to Karla Sundstrom’s clammy clasp. She told me Ms. Wells was waiting in the sunroom. Since this part of the city hadn’t seen the sun since Christmas, I figured Chandelier had borrowed one from an adjacent solar system. Rich people can do anything when they set their mind to it.
The sunroom was off the dining room, which was beyond the great room flanking the foyer—I’ve taken shorter hikes in search of a loaf of bread. When we reached a massive walnut door, Lark asked me to take a seat on the adjacent oak bench, its contours as rigid and unsettling as if it had been stolen from Chartres. “She’s on the phone with her Japanese publisher,” Lark added. “Certain errors in the translation of her last book need to be corrected before the soft-cover version comes out.”
“Chandelier speaks Japanese?”
“No, but for comparison purposes she has her foreign editions translated for her by some professors down at Stanford. Chandelier is extremely diligent about protecting the integrity of her prose,” Lark added when she saw my expression, which was a mix of wonder and dismay.
“Does that smile contain a dash of sarcasm, Ms. McLaren?” I asked.
She blinked with genuine surprise. “Why would it?”
With that succinct and justifiable rebuttal, Lark McLaren disappeared inside the sunroom, leaving me waiting my turn on the bench like a donor at the local blood bank.
I looked up and down the hall. At one end, I heard the clatter of crockery and culinary gear—someone was cleaning up after dinner. At the other, a massive staircase led to the second floor and conceivably on up to the clouds. Between the extremes were various arts and crafts in the manner of the French baroque, which oddly were a fit to my mood—I was as antsy as if I were waiting for Louis Quatorze.
The door beside me finally opened, but instead of Lark McLaren, a little girl emerged. She was four or five, black-haired and -eyed, dressed in a light blue pinafore and patent leather shoes that were far too nice to play in. Her hand was held by an older Hispanic woman I took to be her nanny.
“Night, Mommy,” the girl called into the room. “Night, Mommy,” she repeated, this time more sternly.
Mommy said something I couldn’t hear.
“I love you, Mommy.”
I bet Mommy loved her, too.
“Come, Violet,” the nanny said, tugging the girl’s slender arm to add some muscle to her instruction.
As flighty as a colt, the little girl pulled away from the older woman and twirled to look at me. “Hi,” she said happily, clearly at ease with strangers, even ones who looked mean and ugly.
“Hi, there.”
“My name’s Violet.”
“Mine’s Marsh.”
“Are you here to see my mommy?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Are you a fan?”
“I … sort of, I guess. Sure.”
“Mommy has lots of fans. Millions, even.”
“So I hear. I also hear you know a girl named Eleanor.”
Violet frowned in concentration. “I know two Eleanors.” She held up the appropriate fingers. “Eleanor Colbert at Laurel Hill and Eleanor Mitchell at church.”
“I know Eleanor Colbert, too. She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?”
“She’s all right,” Violet said carefully.
“Is she your friend?”
“Yes.”
“Do you go play at her house sometimes?”
“No.”
“Does Eleanor play over here?”
“No.”
I knew better but I couldn’t help myself. “Why not?”
“She’s too messy.” Violet glanced at the sunroom door. “You better go in, or Mommy will be mad.”
“Does Mommy get mad very often?”
“Mommy gets mad every day,” she said with journalistic precision, then strolled down the hall with her nanny, heading for the stairway that would take her away from me and from her mommy’s moods and into a world much closer to heaven. Eleanor Colbert was messy, huh? I needed to have a talk with her mother.
As I watched Violet hop her way up the stairs, Lark McLaren poked her head out the door and motioned for me to join her. After I gulped back my reservations, I did as I was told.
The room was large and rectangular, with an entire wall of leaded windows bisected by a set of French doors. Another wall was a fireplace, and the third and fourth were shelves containing everything from books and magazines to photographs and bite-sized arts and crafts. Some of the books looked rare; most of the photographs looked new; all of the art looked expensive. A tawny cowhide couch faced a giant stone fireplace that blazed tastefully and soundlessly, indicating the logs on the andirons weren’t real. A leather-covered library table backed up to one section of the bookshelves supported a computer, printer, fax machine, and telephone console, an array of multimedia weaponry potent enough to direct-dial Pluto or e-mail the pope.
Sitting behind the Queen Anne desk was the woman I had been summoned to see. She wore a black cashmere cardigan sweater over a white silk camisole, a double strand of perfect pearls, rings on at least four of her fingers, and an expression that was a mix of impatience and curiosity. Beneath her auburn hair, her face was as serene and imperial as a courtesan’s—without uttering a word, she seemed aristocratic and omnipotent, elegant and expert, certain of her aims and of her ability of achieve them, hobbled by neither doubt nor etiquette. I paid her a silent tribute. I hadn’t possessed as much self-confidence for one minute of my entire life.
She gestured toward a white slipcovered chair that was draped with a colorful afghan and positioned in front of the desk. “Please sit down, Mr. Tanner.”
“Thank you.” Unlike poor Karla Sundstrom, I was comfortable the second my butt hit the cushion.
“May I offer you a refreshment?”
I started to politely decline, then figured what the hell. “Beer, if you have it.”
“I have pilsner and lager, both imported.”
“I’ll take the pilsner.”
“Lark?”
Lark McLaren picked up the phone on the table at the end of the couch, pressed a black button, and whispered my order with the hush of a state secret. When I looked back at Chandelier Wells, she was inspecting me the way she would inspect a royalty statement.
“I assume Karla Sundstrom has told you what this unfortunate circumstance is all about,” she began in a cultivated voice that was both melodic and hypnotic. She hadn’t the slightest doubt that Karla had done just that.
“In outline, but not in detail,” I confirmed.
“That will come later.”
“Fine.”
“Assuming you are available to assist me immediately.”
“I can be.”
“Good. Have you done this type of work before?”
“Not precisely.”
Her expression firmed from frustration; she wasn’t used to people who nitpicked or lacked enthusiasm and she had trouble knowing how to react to the combination. “But I understood you are accustomed to violence and to subduing the people who commit it.”
“Only psychopaths are accustomed to violence, Ms. Wells. But I run into it from time to time. When I haven’t been able to get out of the way.”
She pursed her lips and nodded, apparently believing she had won a battle only she was fighting.
A tap on the door brought my beer, courtesy of a young Hispanic who looked enough like Violet’s nanny to be her offspring. He placed the beer on the corner of the desk, then bowed and retreated, all without saying a word. His servility made me wince. As an antidote, I took a sip of beer. In its frosty mug and with minimal head, it was as cold as beer gets without freezing.
“Perhaps I should outline the arrangement I have in mind,” Ms. Wells was saying officiously.
“I read the contract Ms. Sundstrom drew up.”
“Contracts seldom tell the whole story.”
“I suppose they’d call them novels if they did that.”
My lurch toward literacy provoked a frown. She leaned back in her chair the way I do when the positions are reversed and I’m the one being courted.
Her voice was a strong contralto, her hair was carefully coiffed in a ragged fringe at her neck, her lips were precisely defined with crimson, her cheeks were rosy with blush, and her eyes seemed to be augmented by a set of tinted contact lenses. When she relaxed, Chandelier Wells was far more attractive than in her pictures in the paper, but when she didn’t, she wasn’t.
“Let me tell you a little about my situation, Mr. Tanner,” she said after a moment. “My professional situation, that is.”
“You think the threats were provoked by your writing?”
“I’m certain of it.”
“That’s a bit premature, isn’t it?”
Her smile was condescending and maternal. “As I was saying, when I begin to write a book, I lock myself up in this house for three months. No trips abroad, no cocktail parties or gallery openings, no plays or concerts or charity balls. I write fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, till it’s done. When I’ve finished the book, I send it off to my editor, then go out to promote my last one, which according to plan is just being released. I spend four months on promotion, then four months relaxing, then a month of research on my next book, which I’ve been conceiving and structuring in my mind the whole time, then three more months in seclusion in my study, writing the next magnum opus. I’ve followed that schedule for twelve years.”
“How did you work before that?” I asked, but only because I was curious.
“Before that, I wrote four books in a year and the only place I relaxed was the bathtub. Thankfully I don’t have to live that way.”
“I don’t either,” I said. “But not for the same reason.”
Her eyes narrowed with yet another tic of annoyance. “If you go to work for me, I’ll require your total attention and effort, Mr. Tanner.”
“You’ll get it, Ms. Wells. Just like all my clients.”
“Good.”
“So where are we in this schedule of yours?”
“I’ve just finished a book. It’s called Ship Shape. Next week I’ll send it off to New York. Tomorrow afternoon is my launch party for the last one—it’s called Shalloon, if you’re interested. The next four days are readings and signings at local stores, plus media appearances and chat-room stuff, then I’m off to L.A. and environs, then up to Seattle and Portland, then off to the East Coast to do national television, then the Midwest and South, then back here for a rest in the middle of next month before I set off again for the second tier.”
“Second tier?”
“The smaller cities. Reno, Wichita, Des Moines, Columbus. Twenty-eight in all.
Actually, I tend to draw larger crowds in the smaller cities than I do in the big ones.”
“Less competition, I imagine.”
She scowled. “I prefer to think it has to do with taste—that readers in the hinterlands are less prone to the winds of intellectual incest and political correctness that prevail in more metropolitan areas.”
“Could be,” I said, to be agreeable. “Or maybe they’re just bored.”
Chandelier looked out the windows at the ancient cypress trees that bordered a backyard that fell away toward the bay like a ski slope. “They hate me, of course,” she murmured in a non sequitur.
“Who? The folks in Des Moines?”
She shook her head. “The aesthetes, I call them. The reviewers in The New York Times and their ilk in Chicago and L.A. and the newsmagazines. Mostly male, of course. But not all, sad to say. They flatter themselves that they’re the literary vanguard, entitled by birth and education to dictate the reading habits of the country. To them I’m a joke, an insult to their impeccable taste, but what I really am is proof of their impotence. I sell a hundred times more units than their precious geniuses do, and they can neither understand nor acknowledge it. Deep down, they would prefer that I stop writing, but what they really don’t get is that at this point they are what keeps me going. And the fans, of course.” Her eyes grew as moist as fresh melons. “My fans are wonderful, Mr. Tanner. Truly. They send me the most amazing gifts, handcrafted work of immense skill and even greater hours of labor and of love. I’m humbled by it. Truly.”
“Except that one of them sent you a death threat.”
She shook her head vigorously. “Not a fan. Never.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know. If I did, you wouldn’t be here.”
She looked out over the grounds, as if to confirm her fortress was still impregnable. “Tell me about them,” I said to her back. “The threats, not the fans.”
She waved away my request as a nuisance. “Lark will take care of that.”
“Do you have any idea at all who might want to harm you?”
She spun back toward me with vigor, the antique chair squeaking under the centrifugal strain. “I have several suspects in mind, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to narrow down the list myself. Lark can give you those names as well. It is a sobering thought when the list of people who want you done away with approaches double digits.”
Strawberry Sunday Page 27